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STAR-SONGS AND 
ATOM -DANCES 



BY 



WILLIAM EARL HILL 




BOSTON 

THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY 
1922 



Copyright, 1^22, hy 
The Four Seas Company 






©Ci.A6i)0025 



The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



Hov-31222 \C/ 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction 7 

Star- Songs and Atom-Dances 8 

Love and the Cosmos 12 

The Boulder of Gneiss 14 

The Song of the Spectroscope 15 

Psychology 16 

The Song of Machinery 18 

Teach Us Thy Laws 21 

The Rose 24 

Ode to Beauty 28 

In Memory of My Father 31 

The Boasters 34 

Time 37 

Space 38 

Philosophy of Death 39 

The Woman Maternal 44 

Myopia 47 

The World We Live In 49 

Evolution 50 

Any Man 51 

The New-Born ... 54 

Why? 56 

The Sand Hills 57 

A Modern Euclid 60 

L'Envoi 63 



TO MY WIFE 



To him who seeks the living streams that flow 

From out God's throne, 
I would cry: Courage! Let him onward go 

And not alone. 
Let him have eyes of soul and sense that see 

And ears that hear ; 
Let him love Truth with worship pure and free 

From every fear. 
Then whether he find God within the gloom 

Of clouds and night, 
His soul shall walk through fields where wonders 
bloom, 

Divine with light. 



INTRODUCTION 

I would sing with the stars in their courses, 

With the atoms that never will rest, 

With the cells with their Hving forces. 

With the Life that is Love's behest; 

With the flowers and bees 

And the blossoming trees 

And the world He has made and blessed. 

I would sing of man and his passions 

That are bred in his human brain, 

Of the womanly love that fashions 

New child-souls for pleasure and pain, 

Of the hero's heart 

And the busy mart, 

The sunshine of life and the rain. 

And when I have sung all the stories 

Of the wonderful creatures of earth, 

Of the stars with their infinite glories, 

Of love, of death, and of birth. 

May we catch the shine 

Of the vast Divine, 

And sing of His love and worth ! 



[7] 



STAR-SONGS AND ATOM-DANCES 

The atoms are dancing, scientists say, 

Ever dancing and whirling away; 

In a labyrinthine maze they go 

Like the darting, dancing blizzard-snow. 

What is the tune to which they dance? 

Music of God, or of circumstance. 

Or the meaningless, fooliish tune of chance? 

Ears may not hear the tune that's played; 

Eyes may not see the atom-glade 

Where they dance in the mystic shade. 

But this we know : they have danced all things. 

They have danced the soul and the eagle's wings. 

They have danced the golden nebulae. 

They have danced the stars that swing and die. 

They have danced life in and danced life out, 

Danced the victory and the rout, 

Danced the heart and danced the brain. 

Danced life's pleasure and its pain. 

They have danced the infinite world we see. 

They will dance through the far eternity. 

The poets say that the stars that swing 
Through their rhythmic orbits ever sing 
With a song too grand for our mortal ears — 
And sweet as the fall of the Infinite's tears. 
Does the sun-star sing and softly croon 
To its planet-offspring a lullaby tune? 
Does 'the earth-star sing to its little moon? 
Is all of the music the earth-star sings 

[8] 



The wonderful songs of its feathered things, 

The thrush and starling and nightingale, 

The meadow-lark and the running quail, — 

And the songs of women and songs of men — 

Songs of love and of laughter when 

The heart beats high, and songs of death 

Sung to the beat of failing breath, — 

Songs of the wind and songs of the sea. 

And the moaning song of the forest tree, 

And the thunder's crash of artillery — 

And the countless songs that men may 'hear 

And understand with the fleshly ear — 

Are these songs all of the songs earth sings 

As she courses space with sun-bright wings? 

Nay, the poets are right. There's a vaster song 

With a melody sweet and divinely strong. 

With a rhythmic beat a twelve-month long. 

And diurnal overtones beating free 

As Alleluias of ecs-tacy! 

'Tis the tune to which ages march along — 

Grand and infinite is her song! 

Could we see the flash of the atom-wing, 

Could we hear the songs that the great stars sing, 

We would know that the infinite world is song — 

A wonderful harmony beating strong. 

With the stars to lead with a note as high 

As the farthest reach of the starry sky. 

And the atoms to chorus with voices still 

Which ever swell and throb and thrill 

Till God's whole universe grows to be 

Formed and fashioned of melody ! 



[91 



Oh, my beloved one, would that we 

Might sing and dance to this harmony! 

But we miss the music and skip the beat, 

And often we go with stumbling feet, 

And the heart will faint and the courage quail, 

And we call on strength without avail, 

And we palter and doubt when we should see clear- 

The stars and atoms we do not hear. 

Let our hearts be lifted until we see 

The words of the woven melody: 

See the heart of each atom beating warm 

With the love of each in the numberless swarm! 

Hear them call like the beat of the wedding drums 

While hastening each to his comrades comes. 

Till their thickened swarmings come to be 

The cosmical stars of infinity 

That are held in their places lest they fall 

By the love of eac^h for the love of all. 

See the atoms labor, never still, 

And the molecules throb and pulse and thrill 

With a labor of joy that must not die 

Lest earth shall pass, and the infinite sky. 

See them sihift the shuttles of ceaseless change 

That life may climb to a higher range. 

Lo, the atoms and stars through the infinite day 

Labor as blithely as birds at play 

And build a new universe every day . . . 

Now look with the heart again and see 

Law and obedience ever free. 

Unquestioning what the end may be 

Of the Lawgiver hid in the mystery. 

Never an atom may cross the line. 

[10] 



Graven upon his heart, the fine 

Clear word of the Law is written clear 

For each in the endless far and near. 

Law is the gleam of the sunset's bars, 

Law is the drive of the planet-cars. 

And the whirl of the shining, flaming stars ! 

Love and Labor and Law are three 

Words of the wonderful melody! 

Love and Labor and Law rule all — 

Ever the atoms at their call 

Build the infinite-great from the infinite-small. 

May they rule, my love, your heart and mine — 

The heart of the universe is divine! 

Let us list as the soundless songs draw nigh 

That the whole vast universe dances by. 

For we only guess at a passing word 

Of the massive volumes unseen, unheard. 

Perchance the atom and star and sod 

Sing their grandest song in the one word : **God" ! 



[II] 



LOVE AND THE COSMOS 

When was the birth of Love, my love? 

Ere the birth of the first flaming sun — 

When fire and dew 

And I and you 

And the tiger and rose were one ; 

Ere the infinite points of the ether's force 

Loved with a flaming desire, 

And electrons whirled 

Through the infinite world 

From the womb of their passionate fire; 

Ere electrons were wedded each to each 
And the atoms came to be — 
And each one's fate 
Was to seek his mate 
Through the far eternity; 

Ere the atoms wedded in molecules 

And the molecules colloids bore; 

When the first life spark 

Cleaved the waters dark, 

Love had lived countless aeons before. 

Then ever the loving and loved, my love, 

Were wedded through aeons of time, 

And life climbed on 

From i'ts earliest dawn 

Till it reached the heights sublime. 

[12] 



From the two who were wedded in Love, my love, 

Love fashioned a better one, 

Till the monad grew 

A mind that flew 

Through space to the farthest sun; 

Till the primal slime-life grew, my love, 

To a rose, to a heart that is true, 

To tree and dove, 

To a mother's love. 

To the love and the soul of you ! 

And ever to aid in the upward climb. 

Love summons the King of the Grave, 

To break the old 

For the better mold, 

For Death is but Love's good slave ! 

And where is the realm over which he reigns. 

King Love with his royal robes? 

He blesses and fills 

All the life that spills 

Through a thousand million globes ! 

Love's furnaces fashioned the nebulae. 

Love sang from the flaming spheres. 

And the cosmos came 

From passion's flame 

At the birth of the infinite years ! 

And there is no death of Love, my love! 
Love, Creator and Cause, cannot die; 
For the blue grown black 
With dead sun's wrack 
Flames again in fierce nebulae! 

[13] 



THE BOULDER OF GNEISS 

A fragment of Archaean earth I stand — 
As throug'h the vast millenniums of the past — 
Unchanged, unchanging. Fields of clay and sand 
Were once my brother rocks; now forests vast 
And flowery meadows bloom upon the land 
Built from their ashes: — I alone stand fast. 

Emotionless I stood while passed away 
Vast lands and seas, while mountain ranges sank. 
While shrank the sun, and earth grew cold and gray, 
While the moon froze, and while earth's fountains 

drank 
The light from new stars when the old gave way 
And o'er Time's brink in frozen darkness sank. 

Life came to earth; but not for me the dawn 
When God breathed life upon the neighbor sea. 
I blindly saw that changing life as on 
And up from sHme it climbed to beast and tree. 
Dumbly I glimpsed Man's rise — long seons gone — 
Then watched unmoved 'his timeless destiny. 

Symbol of changelessness I stand. But Time, 
All conquering, some far day shall set me free! 
What mightier, nobler man with soul sublime 
Formed then from out my soul may rise and see 
What strange new rose in what a lovelier clime, 
Apotheosis of the heart of me! 



[14] 



THE SONG OF THE SPECTROSCOPE 

You ravel the strands of heaven-sent light 
With mystic, alchemical arts 
Till the rainbow ribbon lies where white 
Beamed the points of the star-light's darts; 
For never the whole of the ray of night 
Can equal the sum of its parts. 

So you lay in their places the ruby light, 

The gold, the green, and the blue. 

With a warp of lines that are dark and bright — 

For the fabric of rainbow hue — 

That tell that the flaming star of night 

Is one with the dust and dew, 

For the mind of man in your marvellous car 

May travel the boundless space 

And prove that the self-same atoms are 

Diffused through the infinite place 

As the old and new and the near and far 

Are ruled by One Love and Grace, 



[15] 



PSYCHOLOGY 

I 

There are gardens of mystical beauty 
Where fountains like flowers unfold; 
There are temples to Love and Duty 
That are built out of glass and gold; 
There are cities where priceless booty 
Is ever made manifold. 

There are plains that are wide and lonely 
Where the winds ever surge and sweep; 
There are seas that are bounded only 
By the bounds of God's mig^htiest deep; 
There are mountain peaks that lonely 
O'er the plains their vigils keep. 

There's the sea — and land-life round us — 
The dumb and the singing ones : 
There are cloudy skies that bound us 
On the trail where the earth-star runs ; 
And over, beneath, and around us 
Are planets and infinite suns. 

II 

These are only the first few pages 

Of the mystical book of gold. 

Let us read then the lore of the sages, 

Seers, poets, philosophers old. 

Ah ! what is the lore of the ages 

To the pages yet untold! 

[16] 



Ill 

There are stranger seas in the darkness, 

Sunless and dark and bUnd, 

Seas that are hid neath the ocean's Hd, 

Dark as the seas of mind, 

Sunless seas of idiocies 

That we tremble with horror to find. 

There are flaming lands neath the crust of earth 

Dim-glimpsed through the scoriae flood, 

Like, sinister seas of passions that seize 

And master the living blood — 

Passions that new with the man-soul grew 

As it formed from the slime and the mud. 

And on through the universes, 

Past the uttermost star we fiind, 

Past where we grope with the telescope 

To discover what lies behind, 

Is a blind and soundless universe, boundless 

And infinite as mind. 



[17] 



THE SONG OF MACHINERY 

Earth that we know as a flying star, 

Hiding in its embrace 

Infinite worlds of mind that far 

Transcend material space, 

Is but a froth-flake on seas afar 

That flow through the infinite place. 

But yet in the bounds of our little Earth 

Are wonderful things to see; 

Here w^here nights, days, years, have birth 

Through a finite infinity: 

The passing show and the deeper worth 

Of the spirit's mystery. 

And I love the arts and the mystery 
Of the things that we may not know, 
The thoughts sublime of the men who see 
The God in the passing show; 
But I, also, love the enginery 
Of the minds of creative glow. 

For these build palaces fairer to see 

Than Tennyson's dream of art; 

Their towers make Babel seem to be 

But a very tiny part ; 

Their magical carpets sail swift and free 

Where east winds eternally start. 

There are cities fairer than fabled Jinn 
Could create, with his magic power; 

[i8] 



There are wonder-machines wherewith men win 
Luxury's fairest flower, 
And the lightning spark man dares to win 
To speak round the earth with power. 

There are poison gases and searing flame 
And the mighty cannon's din; 
For man's heart speaks the Ineffable name 
But mingled with shame and with sin. 
Ah! when will man put away his shame 
And the golden age begin? 

And over and under the land and sea 

(Seven-league boots are too slow) 

Man roams with his enginery swift and free 

As the bolts from Apollo's bow ; 

He has chained the atoms he cannot see 

And harnessed Niagara's flow. 

The land is plowed and the grain brought in, 

There are tidings of woe and of weal; 

And the man-of-war and the needle and pin, 

And the plate of the daily meal. 

And the leisure and wealth that men may win, 

Come from monsters of flame and steel. 

Men have climbed to tlie stars on the rays of light 

And weighed them one by one, 

Named the atoms in all the orbs of night 

And measured the courses they run; 

Yet the tale of the minds of the men of might 

Is hardly as yet begun. 

[19] 



For man is the image, so small but dear, 
Of the Chemist of mind and of wing, 
The First, the Original Engineer, 
Whose wheels are the planets that swing 
Round the axle-suns of the Far-and-Near 
To fashion the spirit's wing. 



[20] 



TEACH US THY LAWS (1917) 

Lord of the Book and Scales, whose fiery sword 
Doth execute Thine everlasting Laws, 
Teach us to know and understand Thy Word 
And make us fit to conquer in Thy cause. 
Help us to know Thy law and to obey, 
Lest we be vanquished — lest our land decay. 

From everlasting thai: is past and gone 

To everlasting that is yet to be. 

From chaos to the Judgment Day's red dawn, 

Eternities and Times are under Thee. 

Thou rulest them by changeless Laws; and all, 

Princes and peoples, disobeying, fall. 

The wrecks along the shores of ages past 
Bear witness : low they moulder to decay. 
Nor Babylon so rich nor Rome so vast 
Nor glorious Greece nor Macedon could stay. 
Where Eden's Garden made earth's Paradise, 
The lizard creeps beneath the desert's skies. 

Thy law weds righteousness with strength ; for Thee 
We battle 'gainst the hordes of crime and lust; 
We bear the cross to make all people free; 
"Thrice armed is he that hath his quarrel just." 
And yet though we be trebly armed, the foe 
Must conquer if we do not strike the blow. 

For crass Indifference and Divided Will, 
The Dream of poets unfulfilled by deed, 
The Good Intention, Indolence can kill, 

[21] 



The Luxury that scorns its country's need, 
The blameless life that's lived for self alone — 
These hurl the proudest nation from her throne. 

The empty patriot boast, the panic fear — 

Fanatic zeal for other righteous need 

That recks not of our country's danger near — 

Blind Trust — *the faith unquickened by strong deed- 

And flabbiness of body, mind, and will — 

These are the foes that mangle, maim, and kill. 

These are the traitors in our camp today: 
Blood-spattered profiteer and useless shirk, 
The idler dallying down the primrose way, 
The unjust striker, wealth that does no work. 
Lord, bind the loosened cables of our will 
To live Thy law and do Thy mandates still. 

Lord, we have sinned against Thy holy Law 

And kept us lapped in lazy dreams of peace 

While years rolled on when every moment saw 

^ons of agony without surcease : 

Thy holy peoples victim to the Hun ! 

Thy seas defiled, Thy streams with carnage run ! 

We heeded not Thy wondrous shrines defaced — 
We saw unmoved Thy tortured children die — 
We raised no hand for Innocence debased — 
We heard unmoved the murdered millions' cry. 
Now let us heed at last Thy sacred word : 
"Thou art thy brother's keeper," saith the Lord ! 



[22] 



Just are Thy laws and holy evermore, 

And for each moment of our weak delay 

Thou hast allotted unto us the score 

And with our blood and treasure we must pay. 

So let it be. For Justice is Thy name: 

We are not blameless — let us bear our blame. 

Then, though we bear our burden to the goal 
Through bitter nights of agony and woe, 
The seeds of Self and Sloth torn from the soul, 
From strength to greater strength Thy people go. 
The stroke of war shall wound us but to heal 
And change our weakness into heart of steel. 



[23] 



THE ROSE 

Only the God that made her knows 
The beauty of the dew-drenched rose : 

Petals like lovelight shining through 
And heart distilling honey dew; 

Fragrant as breath of beauteous maid 
When Lx)ve*s hand on her heart is laid ; 

Colors as rich as tropic dawn 

Filched from the heavens to grace the lawn; 

Thorns that are formed to pierce and tear 
Beautiful blooms that cry: "Beware!" 

Rose, you are song of wondrous power; 
My song must envy your beauty's power. 

You harness sunbeams your work to do ; 
You feed on breeze and dust and dew. 

Rose, you are queen of those who give 
The primal life to all that live. 

How have you kept the mystic power 
Of changing dust to living flower 

While I have lost, vast aeons long, 
Your power to change the dust to song? 

[24] 



Had you lost and had I kept, 
You might be poet more adept, 

I might be less beauteous, rose. 
How it happened so, who knows? 

Some little chance through the ages vast 
Created us man and rose at last. 

Both are a part of chaos whirled 
From God's great hand to make a world. 

More, life is one on blossoming Earth : 
Come from a common, mystic birth ; 

For that which poet in transport knew, 
Calm-browed Science admits is true : 

I am one with the blossoming rose, 

With beast that prowls and flower that blows, 

With each man, woman, boy, and girl 
In the primal protoplasmic swirl ; 

One with Homer's heaven-strung lyre, 
One with the life of sea and mire; 

One with Egypt's great white queen; 
One with the asp on her bosom's sheen; 

One with Pilate, Judas, Christ, 

And them, who for his vestments diced; 

[25] 



I am one with ravening maw, 
Flower and leaf and tooth and claw; 

One with each tear and moan of pain, 
With mirth and laughter, joy and gain; 

With all men doubted, thought, believed, 
Feared, suffered, hoped for, and conceived. 

More, I am one with near and far. 
With rippling rill and burning star. 

With more than ever man believed — 
With all the vastness unconceived — 

With all that was, is, and shall be 
Throughout the far eternity! 

In my soul and body dwell 

Life and Death and Heaven and Hell ! 

Rose, you are I and I am you — 
One with more than God e'er knew! 

One from chaos and God's breath ; 
One 'neath laws of Love and Death. 

Love has built from chaos. Day; 
Death the outworn takes away. 

Love, Creator, hovers o'er 
Star and rose and ocean shore, 

[26] 



Forms what was, what lies before — 
Mist-hid lands we may not explore. 

God, creative, lives within 
Chaos-mist, and mind and sin, 

In the river's ripple flows, 
In volcanic fires glows. 

Lives within the saint's repose. 
Glows in beauty from the rose. 

God is Love and Love is God — 
Through and beyond all He has trod. 

Rose, you and I are a tiny part 
Out of His throbbing, pulsing heart! 

* ♦ * * 

Only the God who made you knows 
Your vast, far glory of a rose! 



[27] 



ODE TO BEAUTY 

God feeds the soul with Beauty! Morning stars 
Shake out whiite joy where purple skies enfold; 
Through trees of song gleam minarets and spars 
Of dawn-dreamed cities, ivory, rose, and gold. 

And sweet with melancholy falls the light 
Of rainbow sunset-clouds on fields of snow 
When cotton-woods stand black against the white 
Like gallows-trees within the afterglow. 

Oh, happy is flower-decked Summer, green and gold, 
Brave Winter's diamond-dazzling dress and hair, 
Rich Autumn's royal purple robes, and bold 
Young Spring with fragrant breath that fills the air. 

There is a beauty in each leaf and flower; 
In wild beast's prowl, a fierce and savage grace ; 
The steed's swift flight is full of virile power; 
A faery Earth looks to the Moon's white face. 

And earth is filled with melody of song: 
The carolling of birds within the trees. 
The thunder's peal, the surf that howls along 
The rocky coast, wind-moan and buzz of bees. 

The storm-scarred cliffs, the cataract foaming high, 
Are Beauty in excess. The sea when storm 
Lashes its billows to assault the sky 
Is beautiful as some white hero-form 



[28] 



Etched by the Ughtning on a Hell of black 

And shakes the heart like drums. The waving corn, 

The blossoming apple-trees, the river's track 

Of silver, — ^these of Gk)ddess Peace are born 

And bring her joy. Fair is the prattHng child; 
Fair, youth and maid when the world's heart is riven 
By Love's white, Winding flash; and mother mild. 
And manhood's strength for the world's service given ; 

Beauty is Love ! Love, Beauty ! Harmony 

Beats ithrough the world from one vast chaos swirled. 

We are the stuff of all we know and see — 

Man, rose, and sea; atom and starry world! 

Unnumbered years have passed since first man saw 
Beauties of earth and strove to catch and save 
Them from destruction under Time's fierce claw 
By scratching them on wall of rocky cave 

Or carving with rude scraps of splintered flint 
Upon the handle of his spear. The dull. 
First light of human history is the glint 
That tells us man loved then the beautiful. 

Why sihould he not? From chaos, dust, and dew, 
And flaming love of God, the world and man 
And all that is, were formed together through 
The long unnumbered ages of His plan 

And grew to soul and spirit and the power 
Of Beauty, side by side, each meet to be 
That which completes the other, and the flower 
Of God's creation is their unity. 

[29] 



God feeds the soul with Beauty ; night and morn, 
Noon and the touch of evening twiUght fall 
With benediction on the spirit born 
With eyes that see the beauteous soul of all. 



[30] 



IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER 

The mountain rises from the grassy plain, 
His snowy armor splendid as the sun, 
And o'er his head the cloudy banners run 
Lacy and quivering in the airy main ; 

And all the human-wrought magnificence 
Of the great city at the mountain's feet 
Seems but the tinkling bells and tinsel meet 
To ornament his sandals . . . Eloquence 

Of poetry^ and fair memorial high 

Are man-made like the city; but the soul 

Is God-made like the mountain — God's great scroll 

Whereon he graves the beauty of the sky. 

And though I sang as to a seraph's lyre, 
My verse were tinkling cymbal to the life 
That he I loved has borne through all the strife 
With evil like a white sword tipped with fire! 

For here my father met and conquered Death 
And strode from out the tenements of pain 
Into the realm of his eternal gain 
Free from the torture and the stabbing breath. 

And if he felt one wish that he might stay, 

It was that he might clasp the hands again 

Of those he loved and know they loved him when 

The Spectral Terror clanged the end of day. 



[31] 



So much his life had known of pain and ill! 
So often was his body crucified! 
So many a fond unselfish hope has died, 
So few the great desires would Fate fulfill! 

Yet he has never faltered on the way. 
The voice of Conscience was the voice of God, 
And with a soul unconquerable he trod 
The thorny paths and bore the burdened day. 

And he was not unhappy, for the wings 
Of shining Love were wrapped about his life: 
The love of friends, of children and of wife, 
And the great love of God that throbs and sings 

Round godly lives; and oft his soul could meet 
And rise above the tortures of the flesh 
And tread the disappointments and the mesh 
Of worldly troubles underneath his feet 

And gaze on God, and eat of food divine. 
Ah ! think you that the Christ in agony 
Was all unhappy? Nay, his eyes could see 
The holy city and could not repine. 

But willingly and of His choice he bore 
The heartbreak and the stabbing of the breath 
To hold inviolate, through shameful death. 
The purpose of His soul, immortal fair. 

And though my father was but man, he saw 
As in a glass, within the Heavenly place. 
His maker and his Master face to face; 
And he was not afraid who kept God's law. 

[32] 



Why should he fear ! From earUest youth to age, 
With conscience flaming like a fiery cloud, 
With honor unto base things never bowed. 
He wrote true things on an unsullied page. 

So Joy walked with him in the morning light. 
And Love made temperate the heated day; 
And oh ! the glory of the light that lay 
About his head when twilight drew to night ! 

What though the inexorable sword of Fate 
Barred to his feet the shining peaks of Fame, 
And Wealth's voluptuous stream where flowers flame. 
And Erudition's land where sages wait: 

In greater lands than these, he built his throne — 
The kingdom of the deathless human soul 
Where conscience, duty, righteousness control 
With the heart's greed for evil overthown. 

The storms that beat upon the mighty oak 
But knit more firmly still his rooted might; 
The steel that makes the sword must feed the spite 
Of flame and grinding stone and clanging stroke. 

God stripped his life of tinsel and He tried 
His soul v/ith storm and iire and staggering blows. 
We looked and lo ! his naked soul arose, 
Unconquerable manhood, purified, 

Made fit to -dwell in realms of light above — 
"The measure of an angel — of a man !" 
The world is better for the race he ran ! 
He wakes within the City of God's Love. 

[33] 



THE BOASTERS 

THE SAILOR SPEAKS: 

I have steered my barque 'neath the Southern Cross; 

I have sailed neath the Northern Star; 

I have seen God's smile on the tropic isle 

And tlie glacial lands afar. 

I have ridden the waves in the deep sea-caves 

Where the pearls and coral he, 

And the mosque gongs rang on the shores of Hwang 

As my sleepy junk sailed by. 

I have seen the dawn on the Amazon 

And listened to Memnon's tone, 

And, a castaway, I have found a way 

From an island forlorn and lone. 

Oh, what more gay than to sail away 

To the shores of an unknown sod! 

What greater way may a man's feet stray 

Than the way my feet have trod! 

THE SCIENTIST SPEAKS: 

I have seen the swirl of the chaos-whirl 

As it fashioned the nebulae; 

I have seen the flame of the suns that came — 

I have seen them fade and die. 

I have seen the flash of the planet's dash 

Through the steam that hemmed it round. 

I have seen it cool to the ocean pool 

And ithe rivers and solid ground. 

I have weighed the sun and the stars, each one, 

In a tiny but perfect scale. 

I have seen the forms of the life that swarms 

In a drop from the stagnant swale. 

I have seen the prance of the atom-dance 

[34] 



In the farthest distant stars, 

And I whiled away a night and day 

In a house with the men of Mars. 

I have ridden the tides of the Hfe that rides 

Through the infinite day and night, 

Things past and gone and the coming dawn 

I can see 'neath my study-hght. 

THE POET speaks: 

Have you measured the flight of a seer's sight 

Or the height of a hero's heart ? 

Have you weighed the grace of a little child's face 

Ere sin and its sorrow start? 

Have you plumbed deep sin and the strength to win 

From under its crushing weight? 

And why do men fall beyond recall 

At the best of an unkind Fate? 

Have you measured the flight of the rays of light 

From a humbly spoken prayer, 

Or plumbed with your art a mother's heart 

And measured the love that's there? 

Can you weight each part of the human heart 

In its workaday sunshine and rain — 

Bold, sad, or afraid — ^have you measured and weighed 

Its joy and its sorrow and pain? 

Oh, who of us knows how fair is a rose. 

Or the rainbow that shines in a storm. 

Or the music that dwells in the chime of bells? 

Who can tell the creation's form? 

For the things we show are the things men know. 

The things they can understand; 

But there comes a place that we cannot trace — 

Dim lines of a mystic land ! 

[35] 



Do we see ttihe whole or is there a soul 
In the body of things we see — 
A soul of love, in, 'round, above, 
The heart of the mystery! 

THE LOVER SPEAKS I 

Your accents roll like a far bell's toll 

Into the depths of my heart and soul. 

Sweet are the things that the good earth brings— 

Grand are the star and the song it sings. 

Sweet is the prayer of the maiden fair 

And the hero's heart that is worshipped there. 

If that heart seems far from the fair, far star — 

From the purple tide on the coral bar, 

Yet it is not so — ^they gleam and glov^^, 

All of the things that we see and know — 

With the selfsame light and the beauty rare 

That makes all bright that is bright and fair. 

Love was the light that shone so bright 

That it shattered the gloom of the chaos-night. 

Love formed the tree and the bird and bee, 

The rose's blush and the restless sea, 

And love is the art of the human heart 

That alone can teach us the better part. 

Whether or not the human thought 

Can pierce through the veil to a God above; 

Call it God or chance or an atom-dance, 

The All-Creator is naught but Love. 

Sweet are the things that the earth-love brings. 

Love is the song that the star-choir sings. 

Love is the prayer of the maiden fair 

And the joy and wonder that pulses there, 

And love is the greatest of all great things 

And the soul of all that's fair! 

[36] 



TIME 

Lo, giant Time is king of all we know, 

And with celestial clouds apparelled bright 

Rides from the dim, gray void of chaos-night 

From out the endless land of Long-Ago. 

Chaotic nebulae, and flaming suns, 

And worlds that swing and cool and bring forth life,- 

Which after millions of long years of strife 

Is Man that writes Time's story as it runs — 

All these are painted on Time's rainbow clouds, 

The picture of a story infinite 

Of all that men have been and yet may be. 

The things that were but are not, he enshrouds 

In flames magnificent, by which is lit 

The glory of the coming mystery. 



[37] 



SPACE 

1 

How are our lives all ibroidered wit'h the sun. 

Moon and the glory of uncounted spheres, 

Until the eye grows dim with awe-struck tears 

Before the vast immensity and the One 

Who did create all things. But when we find 

Within the water-drop's confining wall, 

The worlds of life infinitesimal 

With powers unknowable by human mind — 

Our hearts beat high to know His power who made 

The atom and the space that rings us round 

Unto the farthest star and onward still! 

How infinite the scene wherein is laid 

Man's story! How His hand our lives has bound 

In the majestic beauty of His will! 



[38] 



PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH 

Out of the dark and the night we fare — 

Into the night we go; 

Shall we see the gleam of the bright stars there? 

Shall we sleep through the star-light's glow? 

Shall we enter in at the portals where 

Lie the cities of dreadful woe? 

If we leave the day for the peace of night 

And sleep while the planet swings, 

While dead suns crash with a lurid light 

And nebulae new take wings, 

While suns grow black that are flaming white 

And the Lord new suns forth flings; 

While the earth shall die and new earths be 

And the finite infinite 

Shall change to a new infinity 

By new God's-lanterns lit. 

Where the spheres shall sing a new melody 

For heavenly ears more fit: 

Then the fool may weep and the coward moan 

That our finite fives below 

May never encompass an infinite throne 

All bright with eternity's glow; 

But let us give thanks for the suns that have shone, 

For dawns and the roses that blow; 

For bowery vales where the sunlight drifts 
Through the green lace overhead; 

[39] 



For the brook whereto through white cloud-rifts 
Is the silvery moonlight fed; 
For the rocky, snow-capped mount that lifts 
To the cloudy skies his .head ; 

For desert and hamlet and heaving sea ; 

For the fields of the wheat and corn; 

For the song of the wind and the bird and bee, 

And the Springtime's bloom-wreathed horn ; 

For the plain's God-haunted immensity 

Where the starlight's song is born; 

For the din and strife of the city streets 

Where the music of labor sings, 

Where the migtht of men ever throbs and beats 

Like a soul with imprisoned wings, 

For the homes where the homing loved one greets 

His loved where the love-flower springs; 

For light and labor and life and love; 

For the poet's sacred fire ; 

For the heart and spirit that soars above 

Till it hears the celestial choir 

And brings to earth of the angels' love 

And the Infinite's desire; 

For the dreams that come and the thoughts that fly 

To the far creation's verge; 

For the veiled desires that hasten by; 

For the hopes that burn and urge ; 

For the aspirations flaming high 

And the changes that ebb and surge ; 

[40] 



For the songs imprisoned in chiseled stone 

Or snared on the canvas white 

Or printed fair on the paper alone, 

All the magical words of light 

That the seers of all the ages have known 

And rescued from Time's swift flight; 

For the barbs of pain and sorrow that bring 

The courage and strength to bear 

That makes a blessing their bitter sting 

While even they rankle there; 

For the power of sympathy they bring 

For another's bitter care ; 

Since joy and gladness and pain and woe 

And the checkered shade and light 

Are the food of the soul by which we grow 

To a grander and better height, 

And the world were grown but a tawdry show 

Should everything bring delight ; 

Aye, rather give thanks for the chance to aid 

In the storms that ever sweep 

The head that in sorrow's bed is laid, 

The eyes that are forced to weep, 

The soul which some ugly sin has flayed 

And the heart no joy makes leap! 

Give thanks for a part in the infinite plan 
Through the endless eeons that flows, 
That out of the primal slime raised man 
With a soul that throbs and glows, 

[41] 



With a mind that leaps space's farthest span 
And a heart for another's woes; 

And shall still raise man through the years to be 

To a purer and better clime 

W'here the shackles fall and the soul is free 

And is raised to the heights sublime 

Whose limits are naught but infinity 

Encompassed in infinite time; 

Give thanks that we all on this upward way 
May aid in this work divine 
By the acts we do and the words we say 
And the thoughts that are yours and mine 
Of lifting the race from the earthly clay 
Nearer to the divine ! 

For naught is lost, of better or worse, 
And the deeds of our life on earth 
Shall live in new lives to bless or curse 
Till a newer world sees birth. 
Though as grain of sand to the universe 
Are our little deeds on earth: 

Yet each is a part of the race of man 
Which runs through the ages to be 
Towiard the hour of a vast perfection when 
The things which are mystery 
Shall be transcribed by the flaming pen 
Of omniscient divinity, 

And all tliat is power in body and soul 
Shall live how often again 

[42] 



In the rose that iblooms — in the thoughts that roll 
From the seer's and the poet's pen — 
In the million forms of life whose goal 
Is a height beyond our ken. 

Give thanks for the marvellous living clay, 
Give thanks for the living soul- 
That is richer than all of the orbs of day, 
That makes and completes the whole. 
That changes dumb chaos to heavenly ray 
And fashions the sky's bright bowl . . . 

So if the soul should awake and keep 

Eternity with the blest, 

Or if we should pass to eternal sleep 

In the realms of a quiet rest. 

Yet we shall know that the Lord will keep 

Our souls in the way that is best. 

And though we should live in the realms accursed 

By the streams of eternal woe, 

We can bear the torture and even the worst 

That men and that Gods may know : 

On the soul immortal new powers shall burst 

From bearing an infinite woe, 

Till the pain shall become as a little thing, 

And the Hell shall become a home; 

Till the spirit in darkness shall take wing 

Or shall will no more to roam; 

Till use and habit shall pleasure bring 

And Hell be a Heavenly home. 

[43] 



THE WOMAN MATERNAL 

I 

Heart of the world's, desire, 
Angel and human beast, 
Cruel as ravening fire, 
Houri and Rose of the East; 

Serpent and mystical dove, 
Slayer and martyred one, 
Muse and the Muse's love. 
Harlot and sybil and nun; 

Valkyr of sword and flame, 
Venus with love's nectar cup. 
Mother of Him who came 
For our sins to be lifted up; 

Ever upon your brow — 

E'en though you east it down — 

Glimmers and gleams though it be but in dreafns, 

God-given motherhood's crown. 

Out of His infinite heart. 
White with Creation's desire, 
God has divided a part. 
Filling your being with fire. 

Waters of Time ever roll; 
Ages encompass God's plan, 
Forming you body and soul, 
Maker, conserver of man. 

[44] 



II 

This is the tool that he used, 

Love of the cell for the cell, 

From the spark in the slime to the heights sublime 

Building life surely and well. 

Monad and hydra and fish, 
Reptile and mammal and man, 
Follow the Infinite's wish, 
Carry Divinity's plan. 

Roses that bloom from the mire, 
Wheat and the cottonwood-tree, 
Mosses and ferns house the fire 
Lent by the Deity. 

Numberless lives from the cell, 
Never are two the same; 
Ever the best, forsaking the rest, 
Fashion the fairer flame. 

Ever the poor and the weak 
Pass ito the impotent grave — 
Terrible Death becomes meek: 
Love holds him shackled, a slave ! 

Love, the Creator divine, 

Building a man from the mire. 

From the lower life and its surging strife 

Fashions a spirit-fire; 

Plants in the human heart 
Love like a mystic vine 

[45] 



Part of the earth and part 
Selfless and near divine. 

You are the mother of men, 

You are God's partner true, 

God's milHons of years you balance with teai 

And the agonized rapture of you! 

Ill 

Not for the life that you bring — 
Earth's tide of life ever rolls — 
This be the glory you sing: 
Builders are you of men's souls, 

Infinite spirits and true 
Built in God's mystical plan, 
Daughters and sons to be mightier ones 
Lifting the races of man. 

You are the current that flows 
On to an earth more divine. 
Far to an earth wherein glows 
Love's most ineffable sign. 

IV 

Star of all men's desire. 
Rose of Love's beautiful earth. 
Bearer of life's sacred fire. 
Goddess of mystical birth — 

God writes with flaming pen : 
Holy the path you have trod! 
You are the mother of men, 
You are the partner of God! 

[46] 



MYOPIA 

Our eyes are myopic : they do not see 

Beyond the fact the reaUty, 

Beyond the shadow the shining Hght, 

The stars of dawn througth the darkened night. 

Men sell their souls for a golden prize 

And bolster their fame with boasting lies, 

And throw the eternal jewels away 

For the gauds of fame and success that aye 

Shall wither and darken within the day. 

For fame and power and luxury 
Are pleasant things when they come to be 
As the great reward for a service great 
And are used to lift up man and state; 
But they poison the soul to a bitter dust 
If built from the hemlock of things unjust 
Or used as a car whereon to ride 
The spectacle to behold in pride 
Of some man of sorrows crucified. 

Oh, not from fame and wealth 'the birth 

Of the poet's joy in the blossoming earth 

Or the heart of love or the wild bird's song 

Or the conscience clean and the manhood strong. 

Earth blooms for all and the restless sky ; 

Death's dart pierces the low and high. 

Greater than gold or palace of art 

Is God's great jewel, the human heart, 

And the spirit of man is the priceless part. 



[47] 



Tinsel and glitter and tawdry show, 

But little of beauty his heart may know, 

Who does not act in the living truth 

That the stainless soul and the heart of ruth 

Are jewels enchanted that God has given 

To raise us up from the dust toward Heaven; 

That the world pays not for the body slain, 

But death of body and all of pain 

To save the soul is supremesit gain. 

And the time will come when these truths shall sway 

All men as a matter of everyday; 

Labor's pride be to serve, not gain, 

God's of Mammon and self be slain, 

Art and Science and Enginery 

And the palace of wealth will come to be — 

Together with all men's minds may teach — 

The blessing of all and the wealth of each. 

Gold will be prized for the good it brings. 

Men will be men, not slaves and kings, 

And peace cover earth with her angel-wings. 

For out of the dust of the chaos-night, 

Shall bloom in those golden ages, light; 

Out of the blind will come to be 

Eyes that may see more perfectly; 

Born from the womb of the dumb and dark 

Be thunder's music and song of lark; 

And up from the aeons be building still 

Rich chambers of mind, strong castles of will, 

And temples of soul on a Heaven-kissed hill. 



[48] 



THE WORLD WHERE WE LIVE IS A 
FRAGRANT STAR 

The earth today is a fragrant star, 

And it tilts and whirls its way 

Where the appleb looms' musk is drifting far 

With the scent of the flowers of blossoming May 

'Neath the flame of the sun's bright bar. 

The world where we live is a flying star, 
And the path where its course is laid 
Blossoms with hght from the flames afar 
Of the night-bloomed suns that die and fade 
When the near star's dawnings are. 

The world where we live is a falling star. 

Through the far blue heavens it falls : 

If it misses the sun it shoots afar 

Through the ether crash where the silence calls 

Three years of the lunar star. 

The world where we live is a singing star: 

In eloquent silence it sings 

Of the Power that on through the deeps afar 

In the numberless stars of the Heavens swings — 

For each is His shining car ! 



[49] 



EVOLUTION 

There is a power that works throughout the World; 
Its other self is Love. 

It built from chaos stars and worlds, and hurled 
Them through the blue above. 

Beneath its laws the atoms came to be, 
From atoms, primal life; 
From primal life, it fashioned you and me 
Through age-long upward strife. 

Its law is this : from low shall grow the great. 
The precious from less worth. 
From savage tribe at last a perfect state; 
Its slaves are Death and Birth. 

To every universe its powers extend 
Of matter, mind, and soul. 
Throughout eternity its constant end 
Divine Perfection's goal. 

It forms the beauties of the Infinites 

As roses from the clod. 

Look to the throne where the All-Father sits ! — 

It is a part of God ! 



[50] 



ANY MAN 

Dew and the dust of the diamond, 

The breath of the billowing breeze, 

And the things men mine by the torches' shine 

Neath the beds of the vanished seas — 

All bound by the strong, bright sunlight's thong — 

You are these — yet more than these. 

A drop in the fathomless ocean 

Of Time and Circumstance — 

A viewless space mid the human race — 

A cell-and-atoms dance — 

Sap-drip as we of Igdrasil's tree 

And a victim of change and chance. 

Yet a part of the great Creator — 

A dream of the life divine, 

By human love and the Love above 

Created wherein entwine 

The vines of the lus/t of our mortal dust 

With the tree of life divine. 

A part of the primal life-cell 

That God, in the long ago. 

When the Earth was young and the skies were hung 

With nebulous suns and low, 

Formed from a dream and cast in the stream 

Of the waters that ebb and flow; 

That like to its Maker, immortal, 
Has grown and multiplied 

[SI] 



With a living birth that filled the earth 
And the waters deep and wide 
With a strange new life where Love and Strife 
On a throne rule side by side; 

That blooms in the wheat and roses, 

And in every living thing, 

And through forms that were fair and foul and rare 

In an endless flux and swing, 

In the ages past emerged at last 

In man and the soul awing; 

And deep in your soul implanted 

Grows the seed of the thing sublime 

That has blessed all life with its war and strifr 

Through every age of time : 

The primal surge of the upward urge 

That has raised man from the slime. 

A little bit of the angel 

That man may someday be 

But with cells colloid like the anthropoid 

And a brain wherein cruelty 

May chance to dwell as within the cell 

Of the fish man used to be; 

A little way-station only 

On the ever-upward way 

That man shall tread till the sun be dead 

And a newer sun hold sway 

O'er a newer Earth of a better birth 

In a freer, brighter day. 

[52] 



Heir of unnumbered ages, 

What may we pray for you? 

The primal surge of the upward urge 

That makes e'en the lowest life true ; 

A Homeric mind and a heart as kind 

As the Christ, and as pure as the dew ; 

A mind that may climb the star-beams 
And a heart for love and woe; 
A soul that glows with the light that flows 
From the throne that is white as snow ; 
And a will to seek for the highest peak 
That the life of man may know. 



[53] 



THE NEW-BORN 

Beautiful bloom of Love's beautiful tree. 
Poem conceived in an ec3tacy — 
Oh, the wonderful artisans, Passion and Joy, 
Have builded a baby-boy! 

Down in the depths of a dumb, blind sea, 

There they have fashioned him tenderly. 

Like a passion flower on the shore above. 

Bloomed the passionate, guarding heart of love. 

Swiftly they built from the tiny cell 

Beautiful chambers where Thought shall dwell, 

Violet crystals that make and see 

Earth and the stars of infinity; 

Digged him a well whence a ruby flow 

Ever within and around shall go — 

Ever around and in and out 

Goes the mystical river that flows thereout — 

Delicate shells they formed where grow 

All of the music that life may know; 

Hands that are grasping and feet that shall flee 

Far, let us hope, from the blasphemous tree; 

Marvellous chemical crucible 

Changing the ugly to beautiful, 

Qianging the dead to the living fire 

Of joy and pain, of thought and desire; 

Over and through and around the whole, 

They fnshioned a living soul. 

All of the life of the earth that has passed 
Brings you to earth at last. 

[54] 



There on the shores of the mystical sea 
You have lived the ages that used to be 
Since the life of the earth first came to be. 
Vast are the ages that passed away 
From sun to sun of your yesterday; 
Infinite ages of love and strife 
Passed in the nine moons of your life 
While slowly up from the primal slime 
Climbed through the aeons of aeons of time 
Life till it reached the heights sublime 
Of a human soul that may know and love 
And worship the God above. 

Happy and great may thy future be ! 

Out from the wonderful, mystic sea 

You have launched on yet vaster a mystery. 

Lo, the dumb silence struck through with your cry! 

Blindness is pierced by the light of your eye! 

Stricken away all the memories past, 

Into the future you're gliding fast, 

Sunshine and cloud and the tempest blast. 

Out of the darkness and into the day, 

Such be your life for aye. 

Sleep then and rest on a soft, bright breast, 

God grant you that which is best. 

Flower and fruit of Love's fair tree, 

Song of the angels of ecstasy — 

Was it Love and Passion and Life and Joy — 

Or God — created you, baby-boy? 



[55] 



WHY? 

Earth is a slave, ever whirling, rushing 
On its ceaseless, infinite round after round, 
Dancing on through the silence hushing 
Every chord of its starry sound. 

Time is a river, a rushing river — 

Never a drop of its waters still — 

Flowing on, endlessly on, to the Giver 

Who giveth the things that have been and will. 

Spirit is Lord of the universes. 
Earth and the Heavens before it bow. 
Rushing Time its flowing reverses. 
Till past is future and then is now. 

Yet in the midst of the infinite flowing 
Unconcernedly turning away 
From the fathomless things, we seek unknowing 
Only the sordidness day after day. 



t56] 



THE SAND HILLS 

This is the sand hill country, 

Where the prairie chickens whirr, 

Where the coyote wails from the hills and swales- 

The land of the cactus burr, 

With blowouts — pits where the lizard flits 

And rattlesnakes strike and stir. 

This is the sand hill country. 

It was formed from an ocean floor 

At the Rockies' birth when the crust of earth 

Was crumpled, and the core 

Of liquid fire pushed high and higher 

Till it reached to Heaven's door; 

W^hen Fire and Earth and Ocean 

Like Titans were engaged 

With waves so high that the very sky 

Was stricken and enraged; 

And the sun was hid by a smoky lid 

Where the flame its battle waged. 

The cry of the broken world's thunder 

Came out of the cataclysm, 

And the ash and flame and steam became 

Like an infinite rainbow's prism. 

And the world's hot heart was torn apart 

Underneath the vast abysm, 

Till the sea was beaten and humbled 
And fled with a baffled roar 

[57] 



In a tidal wave — nevermore to lave 

The land it had swept before; 

Back from the mountains it hurled its fountains 

And back from this ^andy shore ! 

Now the hills are covered with cattle 
And green the grasses grow, 
And horses graze in the summer days 
On the hills and the vales below; 
Toy rivers run 'neath the summer sun 
By a town through the meadow's glow. 

But even some fifty years ago 

'Twas a very different land, 

For even then, say the pioneer men. 

The hills were but shifting sand. 

In sand-storms' loom as in Ocean's womb 

But a flowering, silver strand. 

When the clouds of the earthquake vanished, 

Then the sun rained down his fire 

And the sand grew dry 'neath a burning sky 

And wailed to a wind-swept lyre. 

Till the sand-storm came and veiled the flame 

Of the sun-god's pitiless ire. 

High into hills Uke silver, 

Down into blowouts deep, 

Winds* many-fingered never lingered 

But with a mighty sweep 

Fashioned the hills where the silvery rills 

Of sand no form would keep; 

158] 



For the hills were shifting, turning 

In a ceaseless ebb and flow, 

And the lowly and meek attained the peak 

And the mighty were laid low . . . 

Thus ages passed before at last 

The hills were the hills we know. 

But the south-wind brought the dust clouds 

To mix with the desert sand 

And carried the seeds of the desert weeds, 

Cactus and sage, in his hands ; 

And the rain and snow were like life-blood's flow- 

These made the sand-hill land. 

Then man came into the sand hills 

And the deer before him fled ; 

The sod house shakes when the blizzard breaks 

Or the wind shrieks overhead ; 

Yet the wild red rose mid the bunch grass grows 

And the cattle are sleekly fed. 

I think that the great Creator 

Spoke in the earthquake's tone; 

In the lava flame and the wind He came 

To the desert still and lone; 

In the flower seed and the grass and weed 

We see His work alone. 

He has lifted the bed of Ocean 

Which man had never seen ; 

From dead white sand He formed a land 

That glitters with new-made sheen. 

Is His labor done? It is just begun, 

In these hills of the half-starved green! 

[59] 



A MODERN EUCLID 

Ah, say not, love, you cannot understand 

The beauties of my science. Can you stand 

Unmoved before the laws by which He wroug'ht 

From chaos, Form, with all Form's beauty fraught? 

Form, clothed upon by the Infinities 

Of Beauty and of Glory? Lo, 'tis these 

I teach, the universal, changeless laws 

Of space that ruled e'en ere the Primal Cause 

Eternities ago proclaimed them true. 

The point, line, surface, solid: are not you. 

And all you know and feel, composed of these? 

Can laws which formed all beauteous forms displease? 

We study God's creation and we see. 

Not one alone, but multiplicity 

Of universes, intermingled — ^free — 

Each changing momently and constantly. 

There is a world of Matter. Through the vast 

The golden chains of Law have bound it fast. 

There is a world of mind — an ethic world, 

A universe of feeling. Stars are whirled 

And atoms dance within a universe 

Conceived as one vast reservoir of force. 

There is a universe of life ; perchance 

Within the stellar spaces life may dance 

As on the earth itself. And all that's found 

Within these universes still is bound 

Beneath the laws of geometric space. 

Is not the mind bound in a bony case, 

A solid hemi-spheroid w'hich obeys 

The geometric laws, as the sun's rays 

The shortest distance move through the vast sphere 

[60] 



And give us force, life, all we love and fear, 

And show us all the vastness we may see, 

And make us all that we may know and be? 

I love you . . . 'Tis a line upon my brain ! 

Joy comes . . . Anon, my being writhes in pain. 

I scan star systems of the infinite sky; 

I feel sweet memories of days gone by ; 

I sense the power of the eagle's wings ; 

A thought comes unto me of heavenly things. 

What are they all? — The arcs of an ellipse — 

A moving triangle that swiftly chps 

A groove upon the curving surface of 

A solid, brain. Curved thus, it brings me love. 

Another line etched here upon my brain 

Will make me laugh or leap or moan in pain. 

The lines of this man's brain brought strength and hope. 

Lines there have brought that man the gallows-rope . . . 

The laws of form. Form dominates all space 

Through the infinity of time and place. 

Man's mind cannot conceive fhat formless state 

In which these laws would fail to dominate. 

Force, changing from the lightning to the light, 

To heat, to life, to the soul's zeal for right. 

And back to chemic force, to mind that plods 

Or soars with aspiration like a God's — 

Force acts alone within the bounds of space 

Beneath the changeless laws of form and place. 

Was even chaos formless one far day? 

And is there aught non-spatial? Who can say! 

'Tis true that form and space grow ever less 

And power more. From space came form ; from form 

Came Matter, or the ever acting swarm 

[6i] 



Of physic-chemic forces; and from these 

The vital force of beasts and flowers and trees ; 

From Ufe unconscious came the conscious mind, 

The heart of pity and the soul that's kind, 

And Will that seems to write upon the brain 

Lines fraught with joy and laughter and with pain. 

Perchance some day the soul may so transcend 

All space and form that form will have an end 

And all the geometric laws will cease 

Within a realm of endless love and peace; 

Perchance above the human soul may be 

That which from form and space is wholly free — 

That something inconceivably sublime 

That men must ever worship through all time — 

As Nature God in Titan and in Thor — 

As craftiness and strength in Zeus — or 

As righteousness in Jahweh — Love, in Christ. 

Not yet has knowledge of these things sufficed 

Save but to draw in lines upon the brain 

A shadowy rainbow-haven whence all pain 

And sorrow flee — a Paradise beyond 

This earthly life — a dream most fair and fond. 

Perchance even there our thoughts and words and acts 

Will still be ruled by geometric facts. 

Then scorn not, love, the science that I teach — 

That science which, with universal reach, 

Creating all the universes known. 

Climbs even the footsteps of the Great White Throne. 

For lo,^ these laws are but a portion of 

That Power that broods the many worlds above — 

That changelessness that rules unchangingly 

The storm-tossed waves of Time's eternal sea ! 

[62] 



L'ENVOI 

This is Faith's age. E'en though on Zeus's head 

The thunderbolt descends, though on the grave 

Of Aphrodite are the roses spread; 

And Beauty walks no more to Lust a slave. 

We worship Love. Nay, not the infant god — 

The Maker of a universe divine, 

Eternal, infinite, the force that trod 

On chaos, and from water made the wine 

Of human spirit that shall be divine. 

For paradise is not within the past 
But is to come — when conscience shall refine 
And mind shall grow until it come at last 
To know the world of mind. 'Tis here today ! 
The poet's heart and the enlightened mind 
May walk Elysian fields, and heroes may 
In deeds of selflessness Valhalla find. 

And Mars and Thor and Baal pass away. 

E'en great Jehovah, as the cruel god 

That bade the ancient Israelites to slay 

And spare not one, must pass beneath the sod. 

With groping hands the race will find the key 

Unto the sepulchre where these shall lie. 

We do not worship gods of butchery 

Nor give them homes within our free blue sky. 

How fair and frail the gods the ancient sees — 
Their heaven no higher than an eagle's flight 
With rosy Ganymede; their sympathies 
No larger than the tribe ; their laws of right 
No other than the rules of savagerv. 

[63] 



O'er great Olympus even men may soar; 
And lo ! the stars' and atoms' harmony 
Has drowned Apollo's song f orevermore ! 

Look not unto the childhood of the race 

To learn of God ! But go and read earth's tale 

Engraven on the mountain's rugged face. 

Go learn the book — of love that cannot fail, 

That formed from chaos, cosmos ; read how Man, 

His love, his mind, his passion, pain, and life, 

His beauty and his glory, first began 

In protoplasmic slime; how upward strife 

Has ruled all life, and leads men to the height 

That has no limit — througli the infinite time. 

Learn of the atom and the cell, the flight 

Of shining suns and worlds with Hfe sublime; 

Know, though the body perish, yet the deed 

Shall be immortal. Know the Furies, Fates, 

And Nemesis are Law, and give our meed ; 

That man's soul lives by loves and dies in hates. 

Man's joy is worship. Look up to the blue! 

Behold the Infinite of change, and see 

That changeless power of love and uplift, through 

The ages, that has wrought infinity. 

We cannot know the God: we but adore. 

The beauty and the glory strike us blind! 

Down to your knees, O man, and more and more 

The great unknowable shall be divined. 

Look! Beauty, Power, Majesty divine, 
Spread o'er the infinite their angel-wings ! 
Hear! Cloud and clod, and cell and man and vine, 
Atoms and stars, strike Adoration's strings ! 

[64] 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 







